In a bid for dominance in the mobile phone market, three of the biggest players – Texas Instruments, Symbian Plc and Nokia Oy – have developed a platform for third generation (3G) wireless information devices (WID). Texas Instruments – which claims to produce the lion’s share of digital signal processors for the digital cellular market – and Symbian, a joint venture that now has the 60% to 85% of worldwide production of mobile phones sewn up between its co-owners Nokia Oy, LM Ericsson AB, Matsushita Communication Industrial Co Ltd and Motorola Corp, is promoting the Open Multimedia Application Platform (OMAP) as an industry standard for next generation devices.
The platform is based on an ARM Holdings Plc 130MHz RISC processor with an integrated TI digital signal processor and has been optimized for the EPOC operating system. Texas Instruments is pushing OMAP as the basis on which vendors can develop a new range of services for digital multi-tasking mobile devices, such as multimedia messaging and digital video streaming. In a first for TI, the firm has combined a customized version of the ARM925T core with a 200MHZ, 320MIPS DSP and logic blocks on a single die dubbed a ‘Megacell’. The design also includes peripheral interfaces, such as the modem connection, onboard. TI is building the chips to a 0.15 micron process. The OMAP platform will be supported with a software developer’s kit, open application programming interfaces and development chips. TI claims that reductions in power consumption have been achieved by a move to the smaller die size and changes in the design to the ARM core.
Sami Inkinen, director of products, wireless division at Nokia Mobile Phones, said that the OMAP platform would be used in Nokia’s next generation of communicator and smart phones. Inkinen said that the phones would include image messaging or even real time video facilities, although he refused to say when the products would be on the market. He said that the advent of 3G networks would see volume production of mobile phones using the OMAP platform but that the platform was suitable for 2.5G, especially with the introduction of general packet radio service protocols.
TI and Symbian are talking about the platform becoming an industry standard, but both are careful to note that it is not an exclusive, but an open standard. Linda Bernier, manager of European communications at TI, stressed that other operating systems could be used with the system, through the series of open APIs. While at Symbian, Jeremy Copp, head of commercial programs, was quick to point out that the firm had a relationship with all the other major semiconductor manufacturers, although he declined to name them. The OMAP silicon is expected to sample by the middle of next year.
